Live Review! Youngr at Schubas (March 22, 2017)

For those of you who appreciate a performance, and have ever felt underwhelmed by a DJ who you believed to simply be pressing the “play” button, look no further. Youngr is an emerging artist who is the opposite of passive—he is immersed in his music. He is literally surrounded by all of his instruments and special effects, which he plays and layers on top of each other.

While he’s not quite a one-man-band—he has his brother playing back-up guitar, and another musician on percussion—it is remarkable to watch him move from the keyboard, to a microphone, to his guitar, to his bass, back to a microphone, to his electronic drum set, all while fine-tuning knobs and dancing to his own rhythms. His music, while mostly electronic based, sometimes features almost purely real instruments, such as the song “Daydreamer.” Each song begins with a ripple and builds to a level of anticipation, which is then released as though the ripple at your feet had turned into the mouth of a waterfall above your head with each climactic dance break.

As he began setting up the waterfall rush of his next song, he paused and said “I’m gonna have a little boogie,” and proceeded to take his own dance break. It’s clear that Youngr thoroughly enjoys performing his music with an attitude that’s casual and fun. He went on to play one of my favorites of his, “Out of My System”—a song about putting off diving into a relationship in order to explore the world and yourself while you still have time to do it. The song is inspiring to everyone who may need to focus on themselves and be selfish for whatever reason. As Youngr says, “I need to dance with my demons/ I don’t want them all my life.”

Youngr’s style is fresh and groovy—almost as much as his afro, which he decorates with a little hanging charm. He clearly has an ear for sound, and is capable of sculpting it all on his own with his plethora of instruments and abilities. His hunger for life and experience is wildly apparent in all of his songs, creating a voice inside his listeners’ minds encouraging them to have the same hunger—or is it hungr?

Liz Lawson